The invention relates to a method for consolidating ballast, wherein the track is lifted into a desired position and the ballast is consolidated in this region parallel thereto by setting tamping picks into positioning motion extending perpendicularly to the longitudinal direction of the machine, followed by a vertical and forward movement of the tamping pick, and relates also to a tamping machine for implementing this method.
A machine arrangement known from U.S. Pat. No. 4,257,331 is composed of a cleaning machine, arranged in front in the working direction, for cleaning the bedding ballast, and a trailer coupled therewith. The cleaning machine has a machine frame supported on rail bogies, a clearing device for picking up and a screening unit for cleaning the uncleaned ballast and a conveyor belt device for discharging the cleaned ballast. A consolidating device, mounted so as to be displaceable in the longitudinal direction of the machine and vertically adjustable and comprising consolidating tools designed as a pressure thrust tool, is provided between rail bogies disposed at the ends of the trailer. Further, a track lifting unit is connected to a reference system and a sweeping device is connected to the trailer. With a machine arrangement of this kind the track can be moved into a better position immediately following the cleaning of the ballast bed and the ballast can be preconsolidated at the same time. With consolidating tools of this kind, however, the ballast is consolidated specifically in the region of the spaces between the sleepers and not underneath the sleepers.
A tamping machine is already known from U.S. Pat. No. 3,910,195, comprising a vertically adjustable tamping unit having tamping picks which may be positioned and vibrated by drives. In addition to the tamping picks whose position may be adjusted in the longitudinal direction of the machine, further tamping picks are provided on each longitudinal side of the machine in the region in front of the sleeper ends, each designed to be capable of swivellng about an axis extending in the longitudinal direction of the machine. These two side tamping picks are spaced apart from one another such that when two adjacent sleepers are tamped by the tamping unit, the side tamping picks come to rest precisely in the sleeper end region of the sleepers to be tamped. This enables the ballast underneath the sleepers to be tamped on the longitudinal sides and end faces of the sleepers at the same time. However, before each tamping operation the tamping unit has to be centered precisely over the sleepers to be tamped, lowered, raised and them moved forward to the next sleepers to be tamped. There the whole machine has to be brought to a standstill in order to center the tamping unit and the tamping unit has to be lowered.
The object of the present invention lies in providing a method of consolidating the ballast which enables ballast consolidation to be performed quickly and simply and with increased output, particularly in the case of a completely unconsolidated ballast bed after the cleaning thereof.